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Space inversion, time reversal and particle‐antiparticle conjugation
As we expand our observation, we extend our concepts. Thus the simple symmetries that once seemed self‐evident are no longer taken for granted. Out of studies of different kinds of interactions we are learning that symmetry in nature is some complex mixture of changing plus into minus, running time backward and turning things inside out.
Color vision
Correspondence between physical stimulus (frequency, intensity, complexity) and sensation (hue, brightness, saturation) is neither obvious nor simple. Many theories offer explanations, but none has been entirely satisfactory. Now it appears that all of them have relevance, and color phenomena are being understood.
What do other specialists do?
To fill the frightening and uncomfortable gap that publications leave between one specialist's knowledge and another's, the New York State Section of APS holds successful tutorial symposia. Costs are moderate; management is relatively easy, and speakers and audience have a good time while they learn physics.
Fracture
A solid body fractures not under a critical threshold tension, as once thought, but according to the complex interaction of a number of parameters. Among these parameters are the composition of the body, its temperature—and time. The physics of fracture was discussed at a recent international conference held in Sendai, Japan.